The Second Flight of Icarus

When Regor first discovered the body, Luka was still clutching what he called his "little black book with me poems in". At his side was a bag containing an old worn toothbrush and a comb that was missing more teeth than it had. Apparently, the elastic bands holding his shoes together had been upgraded to silver duct tape. His old Baird television set was still on. It was the only thing Luka brought with him when he moved into the Chalfont rest home. The sound was off. Regor didn't notice the old black and white rerun of Gomer Pyle on the screen. "Oh Luka", he thought, "now you've gone and done it." His old friend looked like shit. He wore a dirty satin shirt with small cigarette burns trickled down the front. He was sitting at the piano, his eyes still open. A burnt silver spoon sat on the glass table nearby. And he held his sacred black book tight to his chest. In his other hand he was squeezing a bunch of one hundred dollar bills. Must have been 200 of them.

It had been almost three years since Regor and the rest of the band had asked Luka to leave. After years of heavy drinking and one trip too far, he was no longer capable of writing or singing. Their first album got a lot of attention but the last two were panned as rambling jumbled messes. Only last year did Luka enter the assisted living home after his stroke. What Regor didn't know, but would soon discover as he read through Luka's notebook, was that the stroke had somehow reactivated his brain. That book was filled with pages and pages of scribbled lines. It was barely legible but completely brilliant. The words sang without music. Yes, much of it was madly insane. That's was made it so captivating. No one had ever put words together in this way before. There was light and dark, outrageously funny lines followed by torturous pain. Wisdom expressed as never expressed before. Insight and awareness that would make the Dali Lama jealous.

Reading it, Regor felt consumed. Literally, as if that little black book possessed him. He laughed a wild and giddy laugh as he heard the words sing in his head. He pushed Luka off the bench and away from the piano. His fingers began to fly across the keyboard and the words naturally joined the melodies. He had just enough awareness to switch on the tape recorder.

When he awoke the next morning the tape recorder revealed the unexpected - almost six hours of recorded song. He also noticed that Luka's answering machine was now flashing. To his surprise, there were three missed calls from his wife Caroline. The first voice message was Caroline looking for him. "Hi, Luka. If by some chance you hear from Regor would you remind him of our dinner reservations tonight? Thanks." The last message was a frantic cry for a call back. She was calling the police and all the local hospitals and was desperate enough to ask Luka for help.

You see, Regor just popped out to pick up some flowers (a beautiful bouquet of roses and lilies, that had since been misplaced), when he impulsively decided to stop in to see Luka. It had been months since they'd spoken, and to this day he has no idea why he went. Regor looked over at Luka, now lying face-up on the floor at the foot of the piano. Without moving his lips Regor could swear he heard him say, "what shall we do now?"

From there, it's kind of a blur. Regor didn't make it home that next day either. He went straight to his studio not far from Peace Valley Park. In fact, he spent weeks there. Alone. Refusing to answer the phone. Playing each instrument. Recording and rerecording, but never changing a single word of Luka's poems. And now he had just enough cash to record and release his first solo album. The album title called him in Luka's voice, from the first page of the diary. The Second Flight of Icarus.

EPILOGUE

The speed at which the album came to be, from finding Luka to recording to the record stores was amazing. The album was released in late November and copies flew off the shelves. Twenty million copies sold and counting. As the new decade started, the press continued to beg for interviews. But Regor was nowhere to be found. Caroline had to take over responsibility for his finances. In just a few years, the estate of Regor Vody was worth tens of millions of dollars.

There was a rumor that he had accidentally blinded himself in July of '81 while staring at the solar eclipse. His brain was already fried by then, so it seemed only fitting. In the almost 2 years since the release of his masterpiece, Regor had filled several small black books with poems. He sat on his couch, wearing an old pink T-shirt and those beat up boots that he bought in Camden, clutching his notebooks. The phone rang. The attendant handed him the receiver and said, "Regor, Caroline's on the phone." Staring straight ahead he simply replied, "okay" and hung up.